


All of Your Pieces

by Archangel_Blood



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-ish, Infidelity, M/M, Mild Painplay, Recreational Drug Use, Take Me Home Tour, Wtf am I doing, mentions of Perrie Edwards/Zayn Malik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:59:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2119410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Blood/pseuds/Archangel_Blood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry’s never wanted or needed a safe harbour, but sometimes he catches himself wishing he had what it takes to be one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of Your Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not quite sure why this story is a thing that exists; one minute I was a (relatively) sane gal, the next I was writing this at 5 a.m., while drinking wine straight from the bottle.   
> Set during the Take Me Home Tour, title from “Pieces” by Andrew Belle.  
> I don’t know any of the people in this, I own nothing, and I have no idea what I’m talking about, basically. (Also, a plastered insomniac writing fanfiction=fucked up timeline & grammatical barbarism ahead.)  
> Okay, on to the shit show.

_There's too much smoke to see it_

_There's too much broke to feel this_

_Well I love you, I love you_

_And all of your pieces_

_Andrew Belle, "Pieces"_

 

 

It’s so easy to slip up and slip under, away from faces he’s known his whole life and places that smell like home, to lose his footing and feign intent, to pretend he’s whole, when no one around knows what he looks like unshattered.

Sometimes he stares at his face in bathroom mirrors under sterile neon lights, a dripping sink faucet’s insistent _tap tap tap_ resonating in the shrieking silence, until the image blurs and distorts, foreign, unrecognizable; someone he wouldn’t have wanted to know a lifetime ago.

He likes to tell himself it’s just his breath fogging the mirror.

Some mornings he’s not sure where in the world he is, some nights he can’t recall who he’s supposed to be.

The days he remembers are sometimes worse.

 

~~~~~

 

He can’t think back to a time when he didn’t want Zayn.

The need to understand him is what had come first, the how and why of Zayn. Under a magnifying glass, Harry had seen with unrelenting clarity the nuts and bolts, the atoms and molecules, coming together to build the two of them in such polar opposite ways; night and day, heads and tails, a seemingly final verdict.

They’d circled around each other for a while, cautious, wary of the ease with which they pushed all the wrong buttons and found all the sore spots. He knew the other lads worried, knew it baffled them how quickly the two of them could set each other off, and it baffled him too.

Yet no matter how much they tried to keep a safe distance, Harry and Zayn, they were bewildered to find themselves failing each time.

Harry didn’t understand it back then, the nagging pressure in the back of his mind and the seams of his heart, this gravity that had trapped him into orbiting Zayn like an unwilling satellite. Harry pushed and pulled, and Zayn stubbornly matched him step for step in a tug of war, undeclared and aimless, until it wasn’t.

There was no grand epiphany, the world didn’t shift on its axis; it’s a quiet, resigned knowledge: negative and positive spaces are never meant to exist separately.

 

~~~~~

 

Sometimes he feels Zayn’s whiskey-and-smoke eyes following him from across the room, the far end of the bar, the opposite side of the stage, feels them like a cigarette ember dropped into the palm of his hand. If he’s brave enough, careless enough to look back, Harry finds himself staring at a painfully familiar reflection, lost and reckless, a cacophony of brittleness, childish bravado and pure, unbridled need.

Some nights Zayn’s arm finds its way around his waist when Harry wobbles on unsteady legs, tripping over his feet as he makes his way out the back entrance of a club. Over the stench of sweat, alcohol and cheap perfume, Zayn’s familiar scent fills his lungs, a cool whiff of soap, leather and cologne, clean and sharp like frozen lime and sage, with that faint trace of cigarette smoke always lurking underneath, and it feels like a cold hand on Harry’s feverish face.

Some mornings he wakes up with the memory of Zayn’s hushed _‘s’alright, I got you’_ in his ear, of gentle fingers holding his hair back when the countless drinks had predictably found their way back up, then tucking the bed covers around him like Harry was five again and he made himself sick, because he’d eaten a whole box of chocolates, even though mum had told him not to.

He doesn’t need this. He doesn’t.

Zayn looks at him through thick billows of sweet-smelling smoke sometimes, as it curls around his face like a frame on a piece of art; he moves the joint to the corner of his mouth, so he can smile at Harry as though he’s just who Zayn wanted to see, the only one he ever wants to fucking see, and Harry tries to be annoyed with him; he wants to shrug this off the same way he turns his back on concerned glances and _are you okays_ , but Zayn stays mostly silent; a carefully bland presence, no questions, no words of worry, no disapproving frowns. Zayn’s just a soothing answering echo of identically cracked plains and matching fractured valleys.

There was probably a specific moment in time, an exact hour and minute and second, when this unobtrusive, unfailing presence became his only true constant.

Harry is vaguely indignant that he missed it.

 

~~~~~

 

Their shared space has shrunk over the years, slowly, naturally; it’s become tighter, more intimate somehow. As the whole world crowded in on them, the parts of them they couldn’t, wouldn’t share with strangers, the tiny pieces of Zayn and Harry, which they could not afford to give away like everything else, had to be kept safe. They gave them to each other, and it had felt like it wasn’t quite allowed; a brush of fingers, an eye-crinkling smile; a truth whispered carefully, deliberately under the blinding lights of a packed arena, over the thunderous beat of the music and the piercing screams of the crowd.

They bring them closer and closer together, these harmless, innocent secrets that are only theirs to know, have them twirling and floating like paper airplanes in the breeze; leisurely, almost gently.

Inevitably all the same.

Hands find the small of a back as if by chance, friendly kisses graze the corners of a smile almost accidentally.

And if their secrets become a little less harmless with each passing month, each travelled mile and walk down an empty corridor after a show, if their innocence starts to fray around the edges, well, that’s just one more truth they’ll keep between themselves. 

 

~~~~~

 

Zayn places a cup of tea on the coffee table, before sliding next to Harry on the hotel lobby couch.

Harry manages a shaky smile. He can still hear the screaming crowd of girls outside the hotel; the noise ricochets inside his skull like a trapped bullet, intensifying his headache until it’s nearly unbearable. The drama queen in him does a hair flip and revels in his misery.

Zayn’s fingers tangle gently in his curls, rubbing the back of his head soothingly, which, yes, good, _please_. Harry’s whole body melts into the touch without consulting his brain, and he lets out a sigh that an unbiased onlooker would probably describe as moaning.

“Drink your tea,” Zayn says, and Harry obediently lifts the cup to his lips.

Zayn rewards him by scratching lightly at his scalp, and Harry drops any pretence of dignity; he probably lost what little of it he had last night anyway, somewhere between slipping and falling on his arse, while attempting to go down on some nameless girl in a bar’s toilet (they should really start making those yellow _Wet Floor_ signs bigger and yellower) and then having to endure Paul’s resolute silence and martyred face on the car ride back, which, courtesy of Harry’s ruined jeans, smelled a lot like a pine forest.

He tips his head back against Zayn’s shoulder, and feels the curve of Zayn’s smile against his cheek.

“Ah, the putrid smell of PDA early in the morning,” a grumpy voice booms, and Harry’s head throbs like he’s been kicked in both temples simultaneously.

Louis’ bag drops at their feet, and its owner materializes before them.

Zayn’s hand tightens briefly around a fistful of Harry’s hair, before he lets go and pulls back. Harry stifles a whine and shoots Louis a sullen glance.

Louis eyes him warily.

“You look like shit,” he says.

Harry has a ‘ _piss off'_ ripe and ready to roll out of his mouth by sheer force of habit, but then Zayn says, “Rude, mate. I did my hair and everything.”

Harry barks out a surprised laugh.

Louis looks like he’s about to take the rudeness up a notch, but Paul marches across the lobby with Niall and Liam in tow, and he reluctantly snaps his mouth shut.

“C’mon, lads! Move it!” Paul calls out.

Niall manages to turn a loud yawn into a _movin’, movin’_ -sounding assurance, as Liam chirps a ‘good morning’.

Louis picks up his holdall by the shoulder strap and straggles after them, grumbling about fucking morning people as the bag drags on the floor behind him.

Zayn taps Harry’s back.

“Movin’, movin’,” he mutters, and Zayn snorts.

“Later, yeah?” Zayn murmurs when the bus door closes behind them with a whoosh, and Harry nods gratefully; he’ll get to sleep in Zayn’s bunk tonight, even though it’s really not made for two, and they’ll hardly get any sleep.

Zayn’s fingers trail down Harry’s arm as he walks past him to join the others in the back.

Harry stays behind, pressing his cheek against the window when he can no longer feel the ghost of Zayn’s touch on his skin.

Sometimes he thinks this is all they are, all they could ever be: a play of shadow and light, flashes of colour and brilliance with a fragile glass core, barely holding the illusion together.  

 

~~~~~

 

The first time he screamed his way through the nightmare, he’d woken up alone, sweaty and shivering, his heart trying to claw out of his chest. The salty taste of tears felt like lead on his tongue, images running like an old, grainy film strip behind his tightly-shut eyelids; deserted rooms and dusty bookshelves, cobwebs and cold beds with rusty metal frames where no one sleeps anymore; shards of broken glass, frosting pictures of people long gone and forgotten, and loneliness, suffocating, all-encompassing loneliness, creeping under his skin like a premonition.

Before he even knew he’d moved, he was standing outside Zayn’s hotel room, knuckles bloody from pounding on the door hard enough to break the skin. Zayn was heavy-lidded and soft with sleep when he opened the door and God, so warm, so close, so fucking real that Harry had wanted to weep with relief.

He’d taken one look at Harry, standing in the hallway in his boxer briefs, pillow hugged to his chest, feet bare and lips trembling, before silently pulling him inside, into his bed and his wiry, strong arms. Zayn held him, almost tight enough to crush or maybe keep the pieces together, until the sky outside bled scarlet, and they were still wide awake, curled into each other. 

Harry left without a word that morning, and Zayn didn’t say anything either; he was just as quiet when he let Harry climb into his bunk the following night.

 

~~~~~

 

“It’s bad, I think,” Zayn says on an exhale of smoke. He takes another vicious drag off his cigarette before he lets it slip from his fingers, stomping it out with the heel of his boot when it hits the asphalt. “She hasn’t returned any of my calls this week.”

Harry leans against the wall and watches their crew, scattered across the venue car park; rapid footsteps and a mounting sense of urgency, like a sequence in fast motion.

“Do you want her to?” he asks after a minute, or maybe ten.

Zayn sighs, slides down to sit on the ground, and Harry follows.

Shoulders pressed together, they stare at the dark clouds rushing across the sagging grey sky.

“I don’t trust myself with her heart, is the thing,” Zayn says. He lets out a hollow-sounding laugh, “with _anyone’s_ heart.”

Harry tucks himself against Zayn’s side, wordlessly anchoring him to the world outside Zayn’s head. He can only see Zayn’s lips, a bit of stubble and one sharp cheekbone from this angle, but he’s not complaining; one third of Zayn’s face is still a better view than most full-frontals he’s seen.

“Isn’t this where you tell me it’ll all be okay in the end, Harry?” Zayn asks with a twisted little smile, and Harry vaguely thinks that this is all wrong, that they should be much too young to get off on such cynicism, but he feels his mouth mirroring the curve of Zayn’s anyway.

“I’ll be there,” he says instead, and Zayn rolls his head towards him, meeting his eyes. A dozen more words, a single unwelcome truth pass silently between them, before Zayn finally nods and turns his face back to the sky.

 

~~~~~

 

Zayn doesn’t like the feeling of being exposed when they are doing press, Harry knows, resents the greedy eyes searching for a crack in his façade, strangers’ fingers itching to slip beneath the surface and rummage through the private moments and memories he’s lovingly stored away.

Harry knows what the next question will be before the interviewer even opens her mouth, reads it in her sly sidelong glance, in the way her whole body leans forward, as if she wishes she was close enough to invade Zayn’s personal space.

“How do you deal with it, how do you make it work, being away from the people you love all the time? Friends, family. Your girlfriend?” she asks him, all red lips and sharp teeth, and Harry hates her; one corner of Zayn’s mouth turns down, and the light in his eyes dims, and Harry hates this stranger with an intensity he hadn’t thought himself capable of.

Harry’s hand balls into a fist on his thigh, knuckles turning white.

Zayn takes his hand under the table and squeezes until Harry’s numb fingers unfurl, and he laces them with Zayn’s. He lifts his eyes to Zayn, who is looking at him instead of the interviewer, lips taut with a strange, half-formed smile, like he can’t quite settle on an emotion as he answers the question with deliberately meaningless, accidentally true words.

Something in Harry’s chest wrenches, burns like a pulled muscle, and he resists the urge to rub at his sternum.

The interviewer tries to push, sinks her sharp teeth into bits and pieces of Zayn’s response as if she wants to taste it, hungry for more, and Harry simply starts talking before she has the chance to. Having a second or two to figure out what he wants to say before the words fly, or, well, dawdle out of his mouth is always nice, but it’s not exactly a prerequisite.

He shrugs and just goes with the story he’s already narrating; apparently, there’s a place in London that makes killer non-alcoholic Coco Loco cocktails with fresh coconuts.

This may be a bit too random even for him, judging by the stunned silence. The interviewer makes politely interested noises and glances surreptitiously at their team, likely trying to make sure this is normal behaviour. Zayn is back to looking at her with a straight face, but Harry knows its planes and angles better than he knows his own, knows the way Zayn’s quicksilver thoughts ripple over his delicate features like stones skipping across water, and he can see the smirk lurking there.

Harry pauses to take a sip of water, wondering how much longer now, when Liam finally interrupts; the apologetically determined set of his eyebrows is so very _Liam_ , that Harry’s lips twitch.

Harry extricates his hand from Zayn’s and starts tapping his pockets, then shifts and squirms in his chair until he manages to shove his hand down the front pocket of his jeans, all the while elbowing a resigned Zayn. He finds what he’s looking for and leans over to Zayn, as if he wants to whisper something to him, hand at the small of his back.

Zayn tilts his head towards him, waiting, and Harry just giggles in his ear, before pulling back.

Zayn gives him a _‘you’re making a joke again, aren’t you’_ stare, reaching back to fish out the crumpled banknote Harry had stuck under the waistband of Zayn’s jeans. He turns it in his fingers under the table, trying to smother an incredulous laugh.

“Prat,” he mutters, and Harry laughs with him.

 

~~~~~

 

“I hate it, to be honest. This press thing,” Zayn confessed once, at 4 a.m., with the lights of some nameless town flashing through the windows of the moving bus. It had felt like they were the only people in the world still awake, curled up on the couch together, weariness softening the edges of consciousness like soothing white noise. “Feels like, don’t know, stripping down in front of a bunch of strangers or summat.”

“Do you have a lot of experience with that?”

Zayn rolled his eyes so hard, Harry was surprised they didn’t fall out.

“You don’t have to take off _all_ your clothes, you know,” Harry told him solemnly. “It’s up to you how much skin you want to show.”

“You’re having way too much fun with this metaphor.”

“You started it, Dita.”

Zayn politely urged him to perform a physically impossible act upon his own person as Harry cackled.

He snuggled closer, burying his face in Zayn’s chest. “Hey, remember when we were scared shitless to go on stage and sing in front of all those people, back when we’d just started? We’d pretend the hall was empty, and no one was there. You could do that, just don’t look at them.”

“Who I am supposed to look at, then?”  

Harry blinked up at him sleepily. “Well, who’d you rather strip for?”

Zayn smacked him upside the head, smiling one of his loose, easy smiles that Harry always catalogues and puts away for safe-keeping.

 

~~~~~

 

“You cheated,” Harry says, frowning.

Zayn flashes him a grin as he gathers the cards.

They’re sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing each other as they lean against the bed.

“Yeah,” Zayn admits unrepentantly.

“Hmph _”_ , Harry replies. He pushes his pile of chewing gum, plastic bottle caps and complimentary hotel shampoos towards Zayn anyway.

Zayn surveys his winnings with a scrunched up nose. “Why did I agree to play for this?”

Harry shrugs. “I did vote in favour of strip poker.”

“You’re wearing a bed sheet,” Zayn points out.

Harry wiggles his eyebrows, leering, and Zayn snorts. His dark hair is a mess, and his laughing eyes are a bit sleepy; his T-shirt is faded and threadbare, tattoos crawl down his arm below the tattered shirtsleeve, strangely fluid with their wide strokes and bold outlines.

He’s fucking beautiful.

Harry thinks he should be used to it by now; it shouldn’t feel like a punch in the gut every time he looks at Zayn after years of knowing him. He wonders if that’s how everyone else feels, if it would be an inappropriate thing to ask. _“Hey, Niall, do you sometimes have the urge to lick every heartbreakingly perfect inch of Zayn? No? Okay, just me then. Good talk.”_

Zayn catches him staring and smiles quizzically, and Harry is transfixed with the way his mouth curls.

He wraps the sheet tighter around himself. Being spread open and taken apart by that smiling mouth has somehow started to seem like a very good idea; he should probably put some clothes on.

Zayn laughs. “Do I even wanna know what you’re thinking? You have that…look.”

Harry’s eyes snap up guiltily to meet his. “What look?”

“Like you’re about to fuck or have just fucked, or you’re thinking about fucking.” Zayn tilts his head to the side, curiosity flickering beneath his half-lowered eyelashes. ”That look.”

“So the way my face normally looks, then.”

Zayn shakes his head no, chewing on his bottom lip thoughtfully, the bastard.

“God, don’t do that,” Harry groans.

Zayn blinks.

“Shit, I said that out loud, didn’t I? It’s just…your _mouth_. Wow, okay, I didn’t mean to say that either.” Tumbling down the rabbit hole, Harry is abruptly reminded, is a bumpy ride. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m being weird. It’s just, I haven’t kissed anyone in ages, maybe I just miss it. Fucking is easy, but kissing…it feels wrong, not with–” Harry lets out a laugh that sounds a little hysterical and grabs fistfuls of his hair, trying to pull himself out of this situation, Baron Münchhausen-style. “I’ll stop talking any moment now, promise.”

Zayn watches him with a somewhat unsettling intensity for several long moments, face unreadable, before the rigid line of his back crumples, as though he’s lost a battle of wills Harry was unaware of. Then Zayn is crawling towards him on his hands and knees, the sharp angles of his face melting into something so undeniably sinful, that Harry bites his lip until he tastes blood, wishing he could sink his teeth into Zayn’s dirty little grin instead.

Zayn’s eyes latch onto the movement, as he comes to a stop between Harry’s bent knees.

“So you wanna be kissed, is what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” Harry says immediately, then thinks better of it. “No.” He clears his throat. “Are you taking the piss right now?”

Zayn’s smile is fainter this time, a bit wistful, a lot wry, like it’s trapped in the tightness around his mouth and can’t spread beyond it. He reaches for Harry’s arm and tugs on it; Harry loses his balance with practised ease, toppling into Zayn’s lap.

He flails awkwardly for a second before his hands settle on Zayn’s shoulders; Zayn’s hands curl around his waist under the bed sheet, thumbs pressing against his hip bones, just a little; just enough.

He looks up at Harry with a hint of amusement, head tipped back against the edge of the mattress.

“Your toga is falling apart.”

Harry smiles and rolls his shoulders; the sheet pools around his waist with a rustling sound.

Zayn traces the wing of one inked swallow up to Harry’s collarbone with his index finger, without looking down at it.

Something flutters low in Harry’s stomach. “Do you know them by heart?”

“I know _you_ by heart,” Zayn tells him, fingers sliding up to the back of his neck, and he pulls Harry to him.

Harry stops breathing.

Zayn’s lips part as they brush his cheekbone, soft, so soft as they trail down the side of Harry’s face. His warm breath ghosts over Harry’s skin as Zayn pauses for a beat, before pressing a kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth.

Harry can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but open his mouth to draw Zayn’s shaky breaths in, shivering as Zayn’s knuckles skim along his jaw.

He wills himself to stay still when Zayn pulls away, all too soon.

“All better?” Zayn asks, and he’s smiling again, but his voice is just a bit rougher, eyes a touch darker.

Harry’s hands fall from Zayn’s shoulders to fist in the bed sheet. “Yes, thank you.”

Zayn laughs and pats Harry’s cheek; Harry takes the hint, climbing off him.

Curled up against Zayn’s warm body later, counting the seconds by his deep, regular breaths, Harry wonders if it’s too late, if he can still get up and get out, out of Zayn’s bed and his strong, wiry arms, and simply rip Zayn out of himself, out of every corner and nook.

Zayn murmurs something in his sleep and gathers Harry tighter against his chest.

Harry closes his eyes and stays.

 

~~~~~

 

Some nights they stay up until the sun rises, camped out on a hotel room balcony; Zayn smokes, staring at the city lights below, and Harry keeps him company, quiet and thoughtful.

Others, they share Zayn’s bunk on the bus, cramped together in the impossibly tight space, feet to head, and they talk, whispered conversations and muffled laughter in the long hours before dawn. Zayn’s fingers draw lazy circles on Harry’s ankles, absently, like he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it, or they find a particularly sensitive spot in the arch of Harry’s foot, on purpose, very much on purpose, and tickle him until Harry’s giggling helplessly, trying to escape, but not really.

Harry still startles awake sometimes, with beads of sweat on his forehead and silent screams lodged in his throat. Zayn holds him close on those nights, and doesn’t complain about the mouthful of curls and the icy toes pressed against his legs.

Harry admits to him that he’s afraid to slow down and catch his breath for even a minute, for fear of waking up and finding everything gone. He’s not ready yet, not nearly, so he panics sometimes, tries to be everywhere and do everything, as if his constant movement is the only force keeping his sandcastle standing. And he’s tired, he’s so fucking tired, but he doesn’t know how to stop.

Zayn talks about home one night, his family, his friends and pets; about Perrie.

He’s stretched out on the couch in the back of the bus, shirtless, Harry straddling his waist as he doodles on Zayn’s back with a sharpie, silly stick figures and lopsided flowers and lyrics from songs Zayn’s probably never even heard of; he accepts the weight of Zayn’s words willingly, lets them sink under his skin, lets it hurt a bit.

“I need someplace to come back to,” Zayn says. “Like a harbour, you know? Even if it’s not the right one, I still need to know it’s there. That’s fucked up, innit?”

Harry shrugs, even though Zayn can’t see him. It is, but he gets it; Zayn’s always needed something stable in his life, invariables to counterbalance the constant change and motion. Where Harry can let go and let himself drift with the current for a while, Zayn wants to be able to feel the bottom of a pool beneath his feet.

Harry’s never wanted or needed a safe harbour, but sometimes he catches himself wishing he had what it takes to be one.

“Sometimes I envy you,” Zayn says.

Harry’s fingers convulse, the tip of the sharpie digging into Zayn’s skin; Zayn hisses.

“Sorry,” Harry murmurs.

Zayn turns his head to check Harry’s work on his shoulder blade and chuckles. “You’re really shite at this, mate.”

Harry hums, undeterred, as he puts the finishing touches to a docked little boat.

“There.”

“Thank you,” Zayn replies dutifully.

Harry nods, running his fingers over the drawing; he bends down to kiss the ink smear where his hand had flinched, lingering there for a second too long.

Zayn has gone stone-still under him.

“I envy you too, sometimes,” Harry offers breezily, like an afterthought.

It takes him three tries to cap the sharpie.

 

~~~~~

 

“This is disgusting,” Louis declares, frowning at his half-eaten sandwich.

Harry, perched on the armrest of a ratty sofa next to Zayn, turns to look at Louis and almost tumbles over backwards. Zayn grabs his arm to steady him, without pausing in his chewing.

They’re backstage, wolfing down a pile of sandwiches, which are admittedly not the best Harry’s had. He’s decided to skip them in favour of the apple one of the lighting techs gave him, after Harry had remarked that it was pretty.

“Don’t eat it then,” Liam shrugs, trying to get more comfortable in his folding chair.

“Give it to Niall,” Zayn says, crumpling the sandwich wrapper into a ball.

Harry snickers.

“Yeah, give it,” Niall encourages.

Louis hands it over with a flourish that someone may find offensive. Not Niall, naturally, but someone.

“You don’t even care what you put in your mouth, do you?”

“Nah, that’s Harry,” Niall replies mid-chew and grins at Harry’s affronted ‘ _cheers’_.

Louis cackles. “S’true, though.”

Harry throws the apple core at Louis, missing him by about half a mile, and Zayn chuckles.

Harry gasps. “Et tu?”

“Eto’o,” Liam corrects.

“What?”

“ _Eto’o_ ,” Liam repeats patiently.

Harry frowns. “What about him?”

Liam shrugs. “Dunno, you brought him up.”

Harry stares.

Zayn tries to smother a laugh and fails quite spectacularly, so he really leaves Harry no choice but to lean down and bite his shoulder.

“See?” Niall says smugly.

Zayn responds by biting down vindictively on Harry’s hand, which is dangling next to Zayn’s face.

Harry’s eyelashes flutter, lips parting around a breathy _oh_ , before he catches himself.

The conversation has somehow shifted to football and seems to have the other three completely engrossed, but Zayn is looking at Harry like he’s seeing him for the first time, eyebrows almost touching his hairline.Harry knows he must be blushing something fierce, because even the tips of his ears are burning, and this is a rare enough occurrence to make Zayn stare harder.

Slowly, deliberately, he reaches for Harry’s hand again and lifts it to his mouth, never looking away as he sets his teeth into the thin skin on the inside of his wrist, right over the pulse point. Harry’s heart throws itself against his ribcage like a frenzied animal, blood rushing frantically through his veins, and Zayn can probably taste it, hammering against his tongue. 

Harry’s whole body shudders, and the twist of Zayn’s lips as he pulls back is a shade darker than his quick, teasing smile.

Harry’s achingly, desperately hard in his jeans, the zip digging into him and no, this is not helping at all. He grinds against it, and the friction has him gritting his teeth to hold back a moan.

_Stop it_ , he chastises himself; think with your other head, and don’t let the one on your shoulders make any decisions. No, wait. That’s not right; it’s the other way around, possibly? He’ll need a diagram or something, he thinks, disgruntled. He’s not sure how much blood is needed to keep his brain functioning, but in his inexpert opinion, having every single drop of it in his dick can’t be good.

Zayn hums thoughtfully, letting Harry’s hand drop from his grasp, and Harry stills, too confused and wound up to even question what the hell is happening.

“Like getting roughed up a bit, do you?” Zayn asks quietly, and he just sounds mildly curious. His eyes are still fixed on Harry, though, and he’s never seen them quite like this before, heavy-lidded and honey-coated and dangerous.

Okay, this…this. Just.

“Yes,” he hears himself say, of course he does; fucking hell.

“Biting, then?” Zayn asks in the same casual way; Harry gives a shaky nod. “What else?”

Harry wonders whether rutting against Zayn’s thigh in full view of their bandmates and crew would be considered socially unacceptable behaviour.

_Up here_ , Harry’s brain shrieks, _the other head!_

Harry licks his lips. “Like, having my hair pulled? And, um, scratching, maybe.” _Don’t say it. Do not say it_. “Zayn, fuck, just….”

Zayn gives him a smile that would have sent any sensible person running for the hills; Harry simply watches in horrified fascination as Zayn glances quickly around them, before he inches his fingers up Harry’s back under the T-shirt. He pauses as one of the sound techs passes by, then drags his nails down along Harry’s spine, just deep enough to leave marks, but not deep enough to get him in trouble.

Harry arches into the touch with a low moan, and Zayn breathes out a curse, running a soothing hand over the scratches. 

Harry can hear the lads laughing at something, the scraping sounds of heavy equipment being dragged across the stage, urgent footsteps and hurried conversations, but it’s muffled, as if he’s listening from under water, detached, unconcerned. The only thing that feels real is Zayn’s hand on him and the heat pooling low in Harry’s stomach; a familiar, unraveling knot of pleasure.

“Hey.” Zayn taps his knee and Harry almost screams. Zayn’s face is unreadable again, carefully schooled back into his well-practised neutral expression, and this is several kinds of not okay. He’s no longer touching any part of Harry, either, which is even worse. “You good?”

Harry shakes his head to clear it, which, quite shockingly, only makes him dizzier. He retreats as far away from Zayn as the armrest permits and takes several deep breaths in quick succession, before nodding jerkily.

“Didn’t mean to get you all worked up,” Zayn says.

Harry shoots him his nastiest glare, which is admittedly not very nasty. “Yeah, you did.”

Zayn gives a lazy roll of his shoulders and eyes him, unperturbed.

Harry huffs out a strained chuckle, adjusting his jeans as subtly as possible.

“I don’t know how no one else realiseswhat a massive fucking prick you are,” he mutters indignantly. He’s reluctantly amused, turned on to the point where it feels like he might cry if he doesn’t come soon and a bit angry. Mostly turned on. “It’s probably the bloody eyelashes.”

Zayn tips his head back and laughs.

 

~~~~~

 

“Zayn?”

“Yeah.”

“You awake?”

Zayn rolls over on his back and heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“Zayn?”

“ _What_ , Harry.”

“Wanna sleep with you.”

“You going to take me out to dinner first, or?”

Harry laughs, orders Zayn to budge up and climbs into his bunk, kicking Zayn twice in the process. Zayn swears quietly, scooting as far back in the bunk as possible, while Harry apologizes profusely and elbows him in the ribs.

“Just, stop moving, alright,” Zayn snaps, rubbing his side.

Harry freezes in his position, sprawled out on top of Zayn. There are a few moments of intense stillness, a silence full of tangled limbs and uneven breathing, before Harry props himself up on his elbows and peers down at Zayn sheepishly through his disheveled hair.

He smiles, trying for contrite. Zayn looks reluctantly endeared.

“Mate. You’re a menace.”

Harry’s smile turns to a grin, and his knee parts Zayn’s thighs. Zayn smothers a laugh as he opens his legs a little, so Harry can settle between them. They watch each other in the dim light, chests pressed together, one breathing in as the other breathes out.

“Now what?”

Harry considers it. “D’you feel like kicking me out? Or yelling ‘unhand me, sir’?”

Zayn snorts. “Do you get that a lot?”

Harry pouts. “Hey. No.”

“What, then?” Zayn asks, and his voice has gone deep and husky, and it feels like fire licking at Harry’s insides. “What happens next?”

Harry knows the sound well, the way Zayn’s words bleed together, the rasp that colours the lows and the drawl that stretches the highs; he’s heard it a million times before. It triggers memories of overheard hushed conversations, of Zayn, slumped against a corridor wall, staring at the phone in his hand like he doesn’t know how it got there, of them sharing too many drinks that taste like tears. Then Zayn would find another girl with a pretty smile and a pretty body, and he’d ask her if she wanted to go back to his room. And she’d nod without hesitation, lost in the way Zayn’s words bleed together, drunk on the rasp that colours the lows and the drawl that stretches the highs.

Consciously, rationally, Harry knows the sound, but before he can begin to process its meaning, its intent, the sheer fucking shock of it, his body seems to recognize it as well.

_Hey, we’re hard_ , it announces cheerfully, and his brain stutters, torn between an ‘un-hard yourself immediately’ and a ‘fucking get in’.

“Did you just ask what I think you asked?” Harry pulls back to look at him, and Zayn looks back. There’s a moment of uncertainty, a flicker of worry crossing Zayn’s face and tugging at Harry’s heartstrings. So many questions and thoughts and fears swirl in the haze of his mind, and he can’t make them out, can’t follow each fragile thread, so he simply gives in and trails his lips down Zayn’s throat.

Zayn lets out a shaky breath and presses his cheek against Harry’s.

“Put your legs around me?” Harry suggests.

Zayn hesitates, and Harry feels his heart rate surge against the thundering of his own heartbeat, even through the thin layers of fabric separating them.

“You wanted to know what happens next, yeah?”

There is a deep crease between Zayn’s eyebrows; clearly, this is not the kind of offer he’s used to.

Harry’s a pretty flexible guy, himself; so to speak. Well, literally too, but that’s beside the point. (If he has considered, once or twice, how him being able to rock The Reclining Lotus could benefit his relationship with Zayn, that’s neither here nor there.)  

But really, sex is sex. He’s never bothered with rules and labels; he just likes to touch and be touched by someone warm and nice-smelling and share an illusion of closeness for an hour or two. That’s pretty much it, as far as requirements go. He’s not sure if his standards, or lack thereof, make him a decent person or are just plain sad. 

Zayn, though; Zayn, who is so obviously out of his element, lifts his legs a bit, hooking them over Harry’s thighs. It’s uncomfortable, the bunk is too small, and it’s so hot inside, they’re both sweating; Harry wouldn’t mind staying like this for a year or two.

He rolls his hips experimentally, just because he can. Then he does it again, because _fuck_ , it feels good.

Zayn bites his lips, stifling a surprised moan.

Harry smiles. “Have you done this before?”

Zayn shrugs, and it’s more of a ‘yeah, maybe’ kind of shrug, rather than ‘of course not, it’s always been you, please go ahead and ravish me now’.

“Yeah?” Harry lowers his head to run the tip of his tongue along Zayn’s jaw, and Zayn grips his waist hard enough to bruise. “Was it good?” he whispers, letting his breath fan out over the wet skin.

“It wasn’t, like, bad.”

“Wow. Try to contain yourself, would you.”

“Blokes don’t exactly do it for me, I guess,” he says, and his hips are obviously not paying attention, because they pulse upwards, grinding into Harry.

“Yes, I can feel your lack of interest poking me in the belly.” Harry rocks down again, a harsh thrust that has him cursing under his breath and elicits a low groan from Zayn.

“Brat,” Zayn says, a bit breathless.

“ _Liar_ ,” Harry returns, lips brushing Zayn’s ear.

Zayn’s hand fists in Harry’s curls and he yanks his head back, like he’s had enough.

Harry sees stars.

“Yeah,” he pants, his entire body going lax, until the only thing keeping him from collapsing on top of Zayn is his hand in Harry’s hair.

“Yeah?” Zayn kisses his exposed neck, slowly, tenderly, before suddenly sinking his teeth into the curve where it meets his shoulder.

Harry jerks, breath catching, then releasing on a trembling sigh, as Zayn keeps sucking and licking and biting like he’ll never stop and God, _God_ ; Harry bucks and squirms above him, and Zayn’s fingers tighten in his hair until Harry whimpers and stops moving. Zayn loosens his hold immediately, stroking the back of Harry’s head in wordless approval; Harry’s chest swells with it, warmth bursting inside it as another hoarse moan escapes him.

“Be quiet,” Zayn murmurs against his skin and Harry nods, then shakes his head.

“Give me your fingers.”

Zayn’s eyes snap up to Harry’s face, all pupils and raw, syrupy-thick _want_. His hand shakes a little as he slips two fingers into Harry’s mouth.

Harry instantly sucks on them, drawing them deeper, and Zayn makes a strangled noise low in his throat, before his mouth returns to Harry’s neck.

The back of Harry’s eyelids is a kaleidoscope, lights and colours and galaxies; he shifts, and suddenly the fit is just right, hips slotting together as they build some semblance of a rhythm, urgency boiling over and overflowing in the tight space around them.

He swirls his tongue around Zayn’s fingers, and Zayn pants against his neck; he gives up on the love bite, as though he can’t concentrate enough to keep at it, and just lets his mouth fall open against Harry’s skin, breathing hot right over the stinging bruise. Harry’s stomach flips as the bunk turns upside down and goes out of focus; he’s so close, almost, almost–

Niall flings open the curtain with a happy “Hey!” and Harry very nearly screeches.

Niall’s smile is frozen in place, and his eyes are so huge, they seem to be held in their sockets by sheer Irish magic.

See, cuddling and touching is not out of the norm for the five of them. Puppy piles of varying sizes are, in fact, the norm.

_This_ , however, is not. The norm. Or anything remotely resembling a puppy pile, unless the puppies were unusually mature for their age and exceptionally dirty-minded.

Zayn’s head falls back onto the pillow, his fingers sliding out of Harry’s mouth with a wet pop. Harry suspects there is a sizable, violently purple spot at the juncture of his neck and shoulder; Lou is going to skin him alive.

He wills his brain to wake up and do something, but the only response comes from his lower body area, and it’s decidedly snappish and unhelpful; something about blue balls.

Harry drops his forehead to Zayn’s chest with a heartfelt ‘ _fuck_ ’. He would try to climb off him, but he’s fairly certain that gracing Niall with a view of the tent in his boxers would not help the situation.

He waits for someone to say something, but Niall and Zayn seem to be in an equally deep stupor, so he lifts his head, juts out his bottom lip contemplatively and settles on a conversational “Awkward, yeah?”

The innocent remark finally spurs his bandmates into action.

Zayn pushes Harry off himself, while Niall spins on his heels and drops the curtain as if it’s burning a hole in his hand. Suddenly it’s dark and quiet again, except for Niall’s shuffling and mumbled curses outside.

“Shit. Sorry!” Niall says.

Zayn groans, and Harry busies himself with rearranging his limbs into a position that doesn’t involve his feet being on his shoulders.

No one says anything for several minutes.

“Can I…are you two decent?” Niall calls out then.

“You have got to be….” Zayn grunts under his breath, pulling the sheets up to his waist. “Uh, yeah, we are…decent,” he tells Niall rather dubiously.

Harry chortles, and Zayn shoots him a murderous glare.

Most people would have just bolted, Harry reckons, some possibly in search of bleach to pour in their eyes, had they walked in on their best mates dry humping each other, but Niall’s, well, Niall.

He peeks through the curtains, cautiously this time, like he expects to find the two of them going at it like rabbits. Which, yeah, there’s a brilliant idea, Harry’s dick thinks.

“Sorry,” Niall says again.

“S’alright,” Zayn mutters, turning to him and away from Harry.

“Could swear I saw Harry at the back not ten minutes ago.” Niall shrugs. “I wouldn’t have barged in if I knew he was here.”

“What?” Zayn asks, and Harry can practically hear him frowning.

“I mean, nothing wrong with…Just didn’t need a visual, is all.”

“No, seriously, _what_?” Zayn repeats, louder, and Harry tries to stifle another laugh. It’s not an entirely successful attempt, in all honesty; it kind of sounds like he’s about to cough up a furball.

Niall’s shoulders slump a bit, and Harry takes pity on him.

“Niall thinks we’re fucking,” he explains.

Zayn pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Yes, thank you, Harry,” he says, with the politeness of someone wondering where to obtain a shovel at this hour.

“We’re not fucking,” Harry hurries to add.

“Could you possibly be any louder there, babe?” Zayn spits out, scowling at him over his shoulder.

“What?” Harry spreads his arms, palms up. “I said we’re not.”

“Why did the bus driver need to know that?”

Harry pouts. “Fine. I’ll stop helping.”

“Yeah, why don’t we try that.”

Niall barks out a laugh, and they both look at him.

“Don’t know about fucking, but you two are definitely married.” He laughs again, and Harry feels an instinctive smile tugging at his lips.

Zayn doesn’t seem amused.

“Can we, like, not mention this?” he asks. “To the others?”

Niall stops grinning and makes a weird grimace. Harry studies him in confusion, before it dawns on him that Niall’s being really serious right now, and his face is apparently struggling with the concept.

“Yeah, mate, ‘course,” Niall says. “I wouldn’t. It’s your, uh….“ His face scrunches up even more, and Harry’s heart feels so full, he thinks it might burst. “Thing?”

“It’s not–” Zayn hesitates, then clamps his mouth shut, as though that’s exactly what he meant to say.

Harry’s heart is not so much full anymore, as it’s fucking cracked in half.

“Excuse me,” he mutters, climbing over Zayn and out of the bunk.

He flops down on his own bed, face first, absolutely disgusted with himself for throwing a wobbler. He hates himself for it and hates Zayn almost as much, hates his stupid smile and his ridiculous eyes, the way he tilts his head to the side when he listens carefully, and that gentle catch in his voice when he’s excited about something but doesn’t want people to know it.

“Well, fuck you too,” he tells his heart, which is wailing a loud and annoying swan song.

 

~~~~~

 

“You okay?” Niall asks him, as they’re getting ready to go out on stage.

Harry flashes him his widest, dimpliest grin.

“’Course I am.”

Niall stares at him for a beat.

“I can see all your teeth,” he says finally. “I don’t like it.”

Harry laughs. Niall’s a good mate.

 

~~~~~

 

“I am never, ever drinking again.”

Harry collapses in one of the chairs around the breakfast table and presses his face against the crisp white tablecloth. It’s actually a bit too white.

Niall laughs, the little shit.

Liam asks if Harry wants something for the headache, a little more sympathetically.

“I want to die, is what I want,” he declares.

“Here, Harold, have a sausage,” Louis offers solicitously. “Look, it’s practically swimming in grease.”

“Oh God. No. Stop.”

“There’s, like, little lumps of fat in it–”

Harry swears viciously.

“Yes, the whole bloody hotel knows you’re into that, thanks to your talkative lady friend,” Louis enthuses, so cheerfully fake that Harry would laugh, if his head wasn’t killing him. ”Although I’m fairly certain it’s sacrilegious, incestuous and/or illegal in most countries.”

Liam and Niall guffaw, and Harry bangs his head against the table, which, _what even_. He lets out a plaintive moan just as a familiar hand smooths the hair at his nape.

“Zaaayn,” he keens, without looking up. “I’m dying.”

“No, he only wishes he was, the hungover lecher,” Louis interjects cruelly.

“Shut up, Lou,” Zayn says. He sits in the chair next to Harry, fingers tangled in his mess of curls. Harry magically feels a bit less like a breathing corpse, so he nudges Zayn’s hand with his head until he starts petting his hair again.

“Seriously, you wouldn’t be so fucking nice to him if you were two doors down from his room and had to listen to this bird screaming all night,” Louis says. “All night, Zayn! Got about an hour of sleep, if that.”

Harry lifts his head to give Louis tragic eyes, not really in the mood to apologize properly, when Zayn says quietly, “Harry and I share a wall.”

Louis halts at that, as Harry’s stomach swoops and starts doing a funny little dance.

“Headboard wall?” Louis asks carefully.

Zayn nods.

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, the previous night flashing through his mind in fuzzy bits and pieces; the club with floors which looked like water, the purple and pink drinks with names that sounded like retro porn movies, and a girl with whiskey-and-smoke eyes. She had looked up at him when he was inside her, and something in him had snapped; he made her scream and beg and fall apart, just to watch her eyes glaze over and shatter like glass.

“Okay,” Louis concedes. “Zayn had it worse.”

Zayn laughs his hollow little laugh.

Harry’s insides finish their dance with a triple somersault, and he barely makes it to the toilet, before emptying the contents of his stomach. He feels like he’s been turned inside out, violent, painful convulsions racking his body until there’s nothing left to throw up.

When he stumbles outside, Zayn is there, waiting for him with a bottle of water.

He lets Zayn pull him into a hug, his arms hanging uselessly by his sides.

“We have an interview in an hour,” Zayn says. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Harry nods weakly.

Zayn doesn’t say anything when Harry walks past his own room and stops in front of Zayn’s.

Zayn kicks the door shut and leans against it; he doesn’t look away while Harry undresses clumsily, strewing clothes all over the floor.

Harry rests his forehead against the tiled shower wall and lets the hot water pound on his back, the billows of steam making him lightheaded. He washes himself again and again, scrubbing until his skin is red and stinging, and doesn’t feel any better when he steps out of the bathroom twenty minutes later.

He finds Zayn sitting on the edge of the unmade bed, head in his hands. Harry approaches hesitantly, dripping water everywhere and leaving a trail of wet footprints on the gray carpet. He hovers at the foot of the bed, waiting.

Zayn looks up at him and shakes his head. He gets up and disappears into the bathroom; when he returns with a towel, Harry’s still standing by the bed, head bent and strands of wet hair sticking to his face. 

Zayn wraps the towel around him, using one corner to wipe the water drops trickling from the ends of Harry’s hair down his cheeks, then draws him into his arms again.

“I’ll get you all wet,” Harry mumbles into his shoulder.

Zayn shrugs, presses his cool, dry lips to Harry’s temple, and Harry simply slumps against him, as if someone’s cut the strings keeping him upright. Burying his face in Zayn’s neck, Harry grips the back of his T-shirt so hard, he can hear seams ripping; he unravels along with them, and Zayn holds him.

“You okay?” Zayn asks after a while.

Harry breathes out a laugh. Or maybe it’s a sob; it’s hard to tell, with his chest feeling like he’s wearing a suit jacket three sizes too small.

“I’m getting snot all over you, Zayn, what do you think?”

Zayn chuckles, but it’s pretty much knee-bouncing in sound form, and Harry sniffs, letting go of him. He dabs at Zayn’s shoulder with the towel, until he bats his hand away.

“What you said to Niall….” Harry says slowly. “I mean, sometimes it does feel that way. Like I’m seeing things that aren’t there. I catch myself reaching for your hand or whatever, when we’re out in public, and then I remember I shouldn’t, and it’s so stupid, ‘cause I woke up with you drooling on me not even an hour before, and it just. It fucks me up.”

“I don’t drool, you snoring bed hog.”

Harry smiles at him, and Zayn smiles back.

“But, like, it’s not all in my head, is it?” Harry stares at him, chewing on his lip. “It’s not just…me?”

Zayn’s eyes drop to his mouth, and Harry’s stomach does that swooping thing again, only this time he doesn’t feel like he’s going to be sick; this one is… _fluttery,_ and he can feel it pulsing in the back of his throat; it kind of tastes like cake icing and that last drawn-out sigh after good sex.

Zayn leans in, lips ghosting over Harry’s, so softly it almost tickles. Harry lets out an unsteady breath when Zayn’s bottom lip catches on his top, and Zayn opens his mouth a fraction, as if he wants to inhale it like smoke.

His fingers wrap around the back of Harry’s neck. He seems kind of lost, like he doesn’t know what else to do, other than touch him a lot, so Harry closes his eyes and stays.

 

~~~~~

 

The show is electric; the crowd is brilliant, singing along to every song, wave after wave of love washing over them. Harry can practically feel the energy crackling through him, almost expects to see sparks flicking off the tips of his fingers.

He knows Zayn’s eyes are following his every move, the way he always knows, and when he smiles at Harry, it’s a real one, nose crinkling and eyes spilling stars everywhere, and he’s almost too much to be real.

Zayn chooses to sleep on the bus afterwards, instead of sharing a room with him, and Harry can’t sleep. It’s too quiet, with the music and screams still buzzing in his ears and the pure, powerful adrenaline rush still speeding through his system.

He gives up after a while, leans back against the headboard and watches the lights of the city outside his window; a steady stream of cars lines the streets even at this time of night, the red of their brake lights dancing across the ceiling like frenzied fireflies.

Harry finds them fascinating enough to _Instagram_ the ceiling, then starts scrolling through his phone. He has a few texts from friends back home, which he replies to; he also sends Grimmy a picture of a horrendously ugly sweater, just to annoy him, snickering to himself.

After another half-hour, just as he’s getting desperate enough to do something crazy, like _Google_ himself, his phone vibrates with a text from Zayn.

_Hey,_ it says.

Harry frowns, then calls him, instead of texting back; Zayn picks up after the first ring.

“Bet that was a bitch to type out,” Harry says by way of greeting.

“I wasn’t sure if it’s alright to call.” Zayn clears his throat. “You alone, then?”

“No, I have Paddy here, giving me the blowjob of my life as we speak,” Harry deadpans.

Zayn snorts. “I know how you get after a good show, is all.”

_Oh_.

”That’s why you stayed on the bus.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“It’s whatever.”

“Zayn.”

“Yeah.”

“Shut up.”

He does.

“I knew which room you were in,” Harry says, before he can stop himself. “I fucked her against the headboard.”

“Harry.”

“Thought of you when I came.”

“ _Harry_.”

Harry swallows; his mouth suddenly tastes like sand and tears. “I’m not sorry.”

Zayn sighs, and it’s not weariness; it’s defeat.

“You make these little sounds, you know, when you’re close,” he says, the words raspy with the gravel in his voice. “Thought it was the hottest thing I’d ever heard, that night in my bunk. These, like…fuck, these breathy little gasps.

The world swerves sharply to one side, and Harry’s eyes flutter shut.

“I heard you through the wall, and I guess I kind of lost it, a bit. I might have….” Zayn pauses. “I’m not sorry either, is what I’m saying.”

“Oh God.”

Harry throws his head back against the pillow, tries to breathe; the room feels too small all of a sudden, too fucking hot.

“You still there?”

“Yeah…Zayn? I think my heart’s sort of stopped working. That’s probably bad.”

Zayn’s laughs, low and husky.

“Did you–” Harry’s voice breaks, and he bites down on his lip, writhing on the tangled sheets. He arches towards the whiff of cool air from the air-conditioning, desperate for something to ease the ache, the need setting every nerve ending on fire. “Did you get yourself off?”

Another sigh. “Yeah.”

“Listening to us?”

“To you,” Zayn says, a deep, dark whisper that slams into Harry’s bloodstream like a shot of tequila. “Just you.”

“Zayn,” Harry hisses, hand slipping down his stomach to curl around his cock, all pretence gone. “Don’t hang up.”

He doesn’t; he stays on the line, not saying a word, and Harry knows that he’s not moving, not touching himself.

Harry doesn’t try to be quiet, to tease himself or draw it out; he pants into the phone, pulling himself off hard and fast, and it hurts a little, too rough, too dry, but he needs to – he _wants_ to let go, finally, mercifully, and let out the name burning on his tongue every time he spills inside someone else, the name he grits his teeth against whenever someone else fucks an orgasm out of him.

Harry twists his wrist on the next upstroke, back arching and neck muscles straining as he swears blindly. Zayn makes a small noise at that, something soft and anguished and devastating, and Harry’s hips shoot off the bed. Lips bitten raw and eyes rolling back in his head, he does come on Zayn’s name, a low moan wrapped around it.

The sound of Zayn’s shaky exhale fills his ear, and it’s as though Zayn had forgotten to breathe for a while. It makes Harry’s entire body throb with aftershocks; he whimpers, too sensitive, too spent.

They stay silent for so long, that when Zayn eventually murmurs a ‘good night’, it almost startles him.

Right, words and sentences; he can do this.

_It’s not, though, it’s not a good night; I can’t sleep without your breath in my hair and your skin on my skin, and I’m so fucked, Zayn, arse over tit, gone, so, so fucked._

He can’t do this.

“Night, Zayn,” he whispers.

Neither of them disconnects the call.

 

~~~~~

 

“Zayn, I have doubts,” Louis says pensively. “And by that I mean, have you gone completely off your trolley?”

Harry, who’s hanging off Zayn’s neck, breaks into a fit of giggles.

“Nice one,” he tells Louis, who scowls at him. Well, there’s just no pleasing some people, Harry decides.

The club is packed, loud, a motley of colours and lights. Harry’s nicely buzzed from the joint he and Zayn had shared in the car, and when the beat drops, smooth and dirty, vibrating in his bones, he just melts into Zayn. Zayn’s arms feel warm and solid around him, and his smile is only for Harry, as he presses it against his neck. Life doesn’t get any better really.

His legs are being difficult, though, even more so than usual; they refuse to cooperate, so Harry sags against Zayn’s chest as he practically carries him up the roped-off stairs to their booth in the VIP section.

Zayn is much stronger than he seems, even if he doesn’t always know it.

He plops Harry onto the leather couch and slides in beside him; Harry immediately wraps himself around him again.

“He got Harry high, and now he’s letting him loose on the unsuspecting public,” Louis announces with a gloating grin.

“He asked,” Zayn says defensively.

“I did,” Harry shouts.

Liam shushes him, shaking his head. “Last time Harry smoked, he did the cancan starkers. Do we really want to see that again, Zayn?”

Zayn opens his mouth, then closes it; Harry smirks at him.

“Well, _I_ don’t,” Liam says in that careful way he has, like he’s trying to figure out whether he is being mocked.

Harry gets distracted by his shirt buttons, so he stops listening; this shirt has too many of them. He undoes the top one experimentally and is quite happy with the result. He’s working on the third one, when Zayn grabs his hand with a muffled laugh and brings it to his thigh, tangling their fingers together.

This is not ideal; grappling with these tiny buttons one-handed will be much harder, he’s sure Zayn knows this. Zayn holding his hand is not exactly a bad thing, though, so Harry’s somewhat appeased; the buttons can wait, he supposes.

“He doesn’t want to go back yet,” Zayn snaps at someone; it can’t be him, Zayn never uses this voice with Harry. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Keep the joint to yourself?” Liam suggests.

“He did,” Harry supplies helpfully. “I didn’t even touch it.”

Liam looks at him confused.

“Shut up, Harry,” Zayn says.

“You didn’t smoke?” Liam frowns.

“No, I did,” Harry assures him. “We shotgunned it.”

Louis rolls his eyes, and Niall bursts into a fit of laughter. Harry takes advantage of this by nicking his drink, and Niall lets him.

“You’re not helping,” Liam tells him reproachfully.

“I know,” Niall says.

Harry fist-bumps him, complimenting Niall’s hands; they’re unexpectedly big tonight, the size of his head, possibly, only less blond.

Niall laughs harder.

Zayn’s thumb is rubbing small circles on the back of Harry’s hand, and he’s smiling at him like he thinks Harry’s a complete nitwit, but also like he wants to snog the living daylights out of him, so Harry hooks his chin over Zayn’s shoulder, face against his cheek.

“If I was not me and you were not you,” Harry says with finality, and Zayn hums inquiringly. “I would’ve fucking loved you, then,” he whispers, and Zayn’s fingers clench around his.

His lips tremble a little when he presses them against Harry’s sweaty forehead; he nods, and Harry nods too, and that’s it, he knows, that’s all there is to it.

He’d rather try his hand or, well, feet at firewalking than burst into tears tonight, though, so he lets go of Zayn and puts several inches of space between them.

“Time for another round,” Louis says, standing up. “Why is Harold trying to take his shoes off? You know what, never mind.”

He turns and jogs down the stairs, without waiting for an explanation. Liam follows, patting Harry’s shoulder as he walks past him.

“The cancan, Zayn,” he says ominously.

Harry has a sudden revelation; there is a painted folding screen, partially shielding their booth from view, Zayn is right next to him, and he smells too nice for his own good, and they are alone now, except for Niall, who doesn’t count.

Fuck the several inches of space.

He stops tugging at his shoe and nearly takes Zayn’s head off with his knee in his haste to climb into his lap. Caught off guard, Zayn falls backwards against Niall, with Harry on top of him.

“You’re squashing my leg,“ Niall remarks; they ignore him.

Harry stares down at Zayn. “Call for the car.”

“Oh, _now_ you want to go?” Zayn raises an eyebrow. “Half an hour ago, you flipped me off and told me to stop acting like yourdad.”

Harry nuzzles into his neck. “I take that back; you can be Daddy, if you want.”

Niall chokes.

Zayn’s shoulders are shaking with laughter.

“You’re filthy, aren’t you?” He sounds a bit impressed.

Harry lifts his head to nod eagerly; Zayn’s face is violet and blue and yellow with the dancing lights, eyes soft and not at all as they meet Harry’s, and Harry’s chest constricts so hard, he gasps for air.

“Wanna suck you off,” he blurts out. “Can I suck you off?”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Niall says to no one in particular.

Zayn’s eyes go black and opaque. “I’ll call for the car.”

It makes Harry dizzier than the weed had.

“Oh, you’re not gonna stay and shag on top of me, then?” Niall asks, uncharacteristically moody for some reason. “That’s a shame.”

Harry shrugs unapologetically.

“No one’s shagging,” Zayn says, a beat too late.

Niall eyes him skeptically.

“ _Everyone’s_ shagging,” Harry retorts vehemently. “I bet someone’s shagging in the loo right now. Wanna go check?” He winks at Zayn.

Zayn stares. “How are you not a virgin?”

“Our shots are coming,” Niall informs them.

“Why are you yelling?” Harry asks, then meeps when Zayn pushes him off himself and sits up, raking an unsteady hand through his hair.

“Shots for everyone but Harry,” Louis announces, two glasses in each hand. “Zayn?”

“Harry and I are going to head back, actually,” Zayn says.

“Good idea.” Niall nods. “Would’ve been a great one ten minutes ago.”

Harry’s on Zayn before the car door has closed behind them. He makes a mental note to himself to make sure the driver gets tipped well enough to compensate for some emotional scarring.

“Harry, wait. Fuck, not here,” Zayn hisses, making no move to shake him off when Harry clasps his hands behind his neck, knees bracketing Zayn’s thighs.

Harry pushes him back into the seat and bends in until their noses are almost touching, head tilted as he searches Zayn’s frantic eyes; he smiles slowly at the havoc he sees there.

The air around them feels strangely charged, his skin is prickling with it; it’s this tension behind his breastbone and in the pit of his stomach, sweet and sore, like being wanked off right after he’s already come, oversensitive and overwhelmed, and it hurts so good, too much but not enough.

Harry flicks his tongue against Zayn’s lips, as obscenely as he knows how. He traces the curve of his Cupid’s bow, and Zayn pants into his mouth, shoving his hands in Harry’s back pockets to pull him closer.

Harry’s still smiling when their lips crash together.

They kiss for what feels like hours; traffic lights and neon signs flash through the car windows, a mellow love song about vows in the pouring rain, diamonds and angels with halos flows from the speakers, as they lick into each other’s mouths desperately, dirtily, sloppy open-mouthed kisses, all tongue and no finesse. The back seat is a flurry of hands pulling at clothes and hair, muffled groans, heads spinning and heavy limbs in the way; they stop to laugh at everything and nothing, before grabbing at each other again.

“God, I want you so bad,” Harry says breathlessly, tugging on Zayn’s earring with his teeth, hands dipping under the waistband of his jeans, while Zayn fumbles with the key card to his hotel room, swearing as he keeps missing the slot.

They stumble and sway, never letting go of one another as they try to make their way to the bed and fail, a trail of discarded clothes behind them, like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs that never helped them find their way back.

“Want you, fuck, I want you,” Harry chants, over and over again, _IwantyouIwantyou_ , jumbled words bleeding together.

Zayn staggers backwards into the wall, and Harry drops to his knees too fast, hitting the floor with a thud and a low curse. Zayn cards his fingers through Harry’s hair and laughs, deep, warm, a little delirious, and Harry laughs with him as he struggles with the button of Zayn’s jeans.

It’s when they fall silent, when he finally takes Zayn into his mouth, deep enough to feel the burn of it in the back of his throat and his aching jaw, when he watches Zayn come undone above him, and the sight has him fucking into his own fist furiously, that’s when all the things they don’t say start to scream louder. It’s there in the way Zayn grabs Harry’s other hand and holds on to it so tightly, it feels like Harry’s fingers might snap off; it’s Harry’s name, leaving Zayn’s lips on a broken moan when he comes, and Harry swallows every last drop, then kisses his hip bone softly, making Zayn whimper; it’s Zayn’s hand, deliberately gentle in his curls, petting instead of pulling as Harry finishes himself off, face in the crease of Zayn’s thigh.

Zayn pulls him up to his feet afterwards and kisses him, slowly, almost chastely, thumbs stroking the corners of Harry’s mouth as he smiles against it.

Some days it feels like the weight of these few, seemingly innocuous words that will never belong to him, to them, is just too much for Harry to carry. They grow and spread inside him like a soap bubble, too much to contain and too fragile to keep safe; words that are not meant to be said but are there all the same, lodged in his heart like wood splinters that only go in deeper the more he tries to pull them out.

With the lights off and the two of them tangled together between the cool cotton sheets, Harry silently presses these syllables and vowels and consonants into Zayn’s skin with his lips and fingers, to the valley between Zayn’s collarbones, the inside of his elbow, the dip below his ribs, tattooing  his helpless, useless love onto every inch of Zayn’s body.

Zayn lets him; he keeps himself still for Harry, as though he knows that’s what he needs from him, takes the clumsy, scattered kisses with quiet determination, patiently, steadily.

Later, when Zayn holds him so close that Harry can feel the flutter of eyelashes against the back of his neck, he catches himself wondering if this has been Zayn’s way of saying it back all along.

 

~~~~~

 

Harry doesn’t dream these days.

 

~~~~~

 

He awakes to a cold, empty bed and gray morning light, coming in through the open balcony doors. The white curtains blow in and he catches a glimpse of the lean, golden expanse of a naked back.

The alarm clock on the bedside table throws a bright red _05:58_ in his face. He groans; on their day off, no less.

He wraps the duvet around himself and goes out on the balcony; Zayn is leaning on the railings, his dark head bent.

From up here, the world seems small, tidy.

“You’re up,” Harry rasps out. “I’ll tell the trombonists that we won’t be needing them today.”

Zayn glances at him over his shoulder, face closed off and hair a mess, like he’s been running restless fingers through it. His eyes are a dull, troubled hazel.

Harry sighs. “What’s wrong?”

Zayn laughs then, and it’s sharp like glass shards.

He spins around abruptly and pushes Harry against the French doors. Harry drops the duvet, taken aback, and flings his arms around Zayn’s waist to steady himself.

Zayn braces his palms against the glass on either side of Harry’s head, thigh sliding between Harry’s.

“I’m losing my fucking mind, is what’s wrong,” he whispers against his neck, lips brushing the pulse point, and Harry lets his head fall back. “You’re everywhere, all the time, with your stupid boots and your chewing gum that you stick on everything and the way you startle yourself with your own laughter, and how your eyes fucking light up when you look at me. I can’t think, I can’t _think_ , Harry.” Zayn grinds against him, and Harry gasps, arching into him. “I wanna take you apart, piece by fucking piece. I wanna wreck you and kiss it better, and leave my fingerprints all over you. I want every single piece, and I don’t get to ask for that.”

Harry feels faint; he has no idea what Zayn is saying, doesn’t think Zayn knows either, but it turns him boneless, liquid. He clings to Zayn, or maybe it’s the other way around, and, “Ask me,” Harry says.

Zayn kisses him instead, a bruising, ruthless vortex of teeth and tongue and white-hot rage, and Harry dissolves in it, gives everything to Zayn.

Zayn bites down on Harry’s bottom lip, hard, before sucking it into his mouth, and it’s just on the right side of pain; on the wrong side of hope. Harry tastes the bitter tang of blood, and yes, he can give this away too. _Anything_ , _everything_ he wants to say, and maybe he does, because Zayn groans like it hurts and pulls away.

He tips their foreheads together, fingers sliding down the glass to curl around Harry’s neck carefully, delicately, as if he’s afraid he might break him.

As if he doesn’t know that he has.  

He touches his lips to Harry’s again, feather-light, achingly tender, and it turns Harry’s blood to ice.

“Go back inside, please,” Zayn whispers.

Harry shakes his head.

Zayn takes a step back, hands falling from Harry’s neck to clench into fists at his sides.

“You could’ve asked me to fuck you right there in that club, Harry, for the whole bloody world to see, and I would’ve said yes. You can ask for anything, and I’ll always say yes to you.”

“I’ll always say yes, too.”

Zayn stares at him, and he looks so worn out, so distant that Harry’s eyes start to burn.

“I know. That’s not how it works, though.”

“You know all about relationships that work, do you?” Harry spits out and hates himself for it, hates Zayn’s wry little smirk even more.

“I know a lot about relationships that don’t.”

“Is this about Perrie?”

“Harry.”

“There’s more than one fucking harbour in the world,” Harry tells him, anger making him careless. “And we do work, Zayn. Even when we don’t, that works too.”

“We’re a fucking train wreck,” Zayn says softly.

Harry shrugs.

Zayn shakes his head, averting his eyes, and this shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

“Wait, is this you _breaking up_ with me?” Harry laughs, and the sound raises the hairs on the back of his own neck. “Did you also try to break up with that girl in Sweden, after you fucked her in the toilet?”

“Don’t,” Zayn says quietly.

Harry sniffs, blinking furiously. “No, _you_ don’t, Zayn.”

Zayn turns his back to him to look down at the sleeping city below. “Please, just go,” he says, and his voice drops at their feet and bursts into dust.

 

~~~~~

 

“This is bollocks,” Harry says, his head in Niall’s lap as they lie in bed and watch soap opera reruns in Niall’s hotel room.

“Yeah,” Niall agrees dutifully.

“He’s a tosser – a bony one.”

“He is a bit bony,” Niall allows. “This would be easier if you just told me what the fuck happened.”

“Nothing,” Harry mumbles. “Nothing happened.”

Niall sighs.

“Louis probably has it worse,” he says, looking somewhat consoled by the notion.

They watch TV in silence for a while, Niall annihilating a bag of crisps as quietly as he can. Harry appreciates the effort, even if Niall is completely incapable of being quiet.

“What’s so bad about train wrecks anyway?” he blurts out.

“Is there anything not bad about them?” Niall inquires cautiously.

Niall has no idea how train wrecks are relevant to the conversation, of course, so Harry tries to be lenient.

“Shut up, Niall.”

Niall doesn’t say anything when Harry steals some of his crisps; Harry supposes he must look as wretched as he feels.

“M’not okay,” he proclaims ruefully, and Niall pets his hair. “I’m pathetic. This is just pathetic, isn’t it? Wait,” he says when Niall opens his mouth to respond, “don’t answer that.”

Niall clamps his mouth shut and offers him the bag of crisps again.

Harry turns back to the TV.

“Does Ethan end up with Gwen?” he asks.

“Nah, he belongs with Theresa.”

Harry pats Niall’s knee. “You’re a good mate, Niall.”

 

~~~~~

 

Louis corners Harry in his hotel room in Colorado and complains that Zayn is completely unmanageable.

“He’s being a right twat, and he’s not listening to anyone,” Louis says with an injured air.

“Meaning, he’s not listening to you,” Harry replies, going back to digging through his suitcase. “My _Stones_ T-shirt is missing.”

“He’s downstairs in the hotel bar, getting shitfaced.”

“It was here yesterday.”

Louis snaps his fingers in front of Harry’s face, and Harry turns to him, annoyed.

“Ask Liam to go deal with it.”

“I did.” Louis actually stomps his foot. “I don’t know what the fuck Zayn said to him, but Liam was hugging himself, rocking back and forth when I left him. It was all very tragic.”

Harry rolls his eyes and slams the suitcase closed. “If he’s that plastered, even you should be able to kick Zayn’s nonexistent arse. I’ll come watch.”

“Please, I could take Zayn any day.”

Harry scoffs. Louis looks like he wants to argue, but then he shakes his head.

“No, this is me being serious. Which means shit is fucking serious. He hasn’t been sober in, like, a week.”

Harry studiously ignores the pang in his chest. “What I am supposed to do about it?”

Louis eyes him. “He listens to _you_ , for some inane reason.”

Harry eyes him back.

Louis groans. “Christ. Can you two just go back to being unhealthily codependent on each other? I mean, you were completely insufferable, of course, but this is even worse.”

“You’re one to talk. Like you and Zayn don’t live in each other’s pockets.”

That seems to gets Louis’ attention, weirdly. He studies Harry silently; it’s a bit unnerving, if he’s honest.

“Right,” Louis says finally. “Look, if he used up your hair product or whatever, I’m sure he’s very, very sorry. Can you go and fix him now, before Paul gets a whiff of this?”

“I don’t think so.”

Louis seems to deduce that cajoling will get him nowhere, because he grabs Harry’s elbow and hauls him down to the hotel lounge. Harry drags his feet, stumbles on purpose, utilising years of experience, then refuses to let go of the lift handrails and generally does his best to make the short trip unpleasantly eventful for Louis.  

Louis is a stubborn little bastard, though, and he’s surprisingly hard to shake off; he sing-songs “Have fun!” and leaves Harry alone to tug awkwardly on his old vest.

He looks around; soft yellow light, polished, shiny floors and Zayn, sitting at a corner table with a drink in his hand and some redhead’s mouth attached to his neck.

Zayn is about ready to pass out, Harry thinks. And he’s wearing his _Stones_ T-shirt.

He lifts his head and fixes his eyes on Harry amidst the throng of people, unerringly, as if Harry has called his name.

Harry’s chest hurts even more as he walks up to Zayn’s table.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

“Crocheting doilies,” Zayn drawls, and the redhead giggles. “How ‘bout you?”

“Go back to your room, Zayn. Take the girl with you, just move this upstairs before they kick you out or someone calls Paul.”

“Bugger off, mate.”

Harry folds his arms across his chest and huffs out a frustrated breath. “Why do you have my shirt, _mate_?”

Something flickers in Zayn’s glassy eyes, something small and forlorn, before he shakes his head. He lowers his face to the girl’s and lets her kiss him.

“Don’t be daft,” Harry tells him wearily. “Why are you so bent on fucking yourself over?”

Zayn looks up again, so lost, so goddamn beautiful, cracked and jaded and glued together all wrong, and Harry wants him so much it’s this deep, dull ache in his muscles and bones.

“You’re just gonna end up hurt,” he says mildly.

“I’d rather it was me.” Zayn watches him for another long moment. “Drop it, Harry.”

Harry’s heart stutters and stops; it skips a beat, two beats and restarts with a violent thump.

The redhead looks from one to the other, puzzled.

Harry nods slowly, taking a couple of steps backwards, then turns around and heads out, focused on moving one foot in front of the other.

He’s halfway to the lifts, when he hears Zayn calling after him. Harry stops walking, before he’s even had the chance to give his body the command. He stands there in the hallway, his back to Zayn and his head bowed, and he just, he can’t do this anymore.

Zayn’s shuffling footsteps halt behind him, and he drapes himself over Harry’s back, fingers locking together over his stomach.

“I can’t,” Zayn says, face between Harry’s shoulder blades. “Shit, I can’t, alright. You do it. Walk away.”

Harry hadn’t even realised he was holding his breath, until it whooshes out of him, and he deflates.

He covers Zayn’s hands with his, linking their fingers.

Zayn laughs.

“I kind of hate you, sometimes,” he slurs, rubbing his nose against the back of Harry’s neck.

“Me too,” Harry says, and he thinks it’s almost true.

“Your T-shirt didn’t smell like you at all,” Zayn accuses. “Just detergent.”

He sounds like a toddler past nap time, and Harry smiles.

“Do you want the one I’m wearing now?”

Zayn hums, tightening his arms around him. “No,” he decides. “Remember what you said? You’ll be there, yeah?”  

“Yeah.” Harry sighs. “I’ll be there.”

 

~~~~~

 

Harry wakes up to find Zayn staring at him. Their faces are so close together that Zayn’s eyes look huge, impossibly wide and unblinking.

They’re sharing the same pillow, legs tangled, duvet kicked off the bed. The night air has chased away the heat, and it doesn’t burn their lungs on the way in anymore. Zayn’s skin is cool under Harry’s hand, splayed over his ribs.

The only sounds in the room are their breathing and the soft rustle of the curtains.

“Alright?” Harry murmurs, blinking slowly; his eyelids are too heavy. He feels weightless in the smoky mauve of twilight, with the wind sprinkling crisp little kisses across his naked back, and Zayn’s fingers running up and down his spine.

Zayn gives him a small smile, then tilts his head to press his lips against Harry’s, lightly, almost hesitantly, like he doesn’t know if he is still allowed to.

Something inside Harry uncoils and loosens.

He licks into Zayn’s mouth, and Zayn makes a low, pleased noise, his hand sliding down to Harry’s waist as he deepens the kiss.

There is no real urgency this time, no desperation or hurry; they both know where this is going now, sooner or later, and it makes them feel like they are holding the world in their hands. So they slow the moment down, and it’s simple, easy; sighs of content, fingertips skimming over long stretches of skin as they kiss languidly, drifting on the edges of sleep.

“Yeah,” Zayn whispers against Harry’s smile, “alright.”

 

~~~~~

 

Harry is acutely miserable.

The last week or so has been so damn hectic that he and Zayn haven’t had the chance to exchange more than a few words in private. There’s always someone around, bodyguards, crew members, reporters, one or more of the lads, people following them around, even waking them up in the middle of the night. So they are back to staring from afar, linking their pinky fingers or pressing their knees together under the table.

It’s different, though, now when they know they’re going to fuck the second they find a door with a lock and a relatively flat surface. Harry will lick and bite his lips in the middle of an interview, just to watch Zayn’s eyes go dark, or Zayn will rub himself against the permanent boner Harry’s sporting these days when he walks past him on the bus.

It’s there even in the smallest touches, the ones they steal right in front of everyone’s eyes; Zayn will fix the scarf tied round Harry’s head with a fond eye roll, and because no one does fond eye rolls like Zayn, Harry will just melt into him, head on Zayn’s shoulder under the guise of giving him better access. And then Zayn will mutter, “Do you even realise what I want to do to you,” as his nimble fingers retie the scarf, and it will take everything in Harry to keep from shooting his load then and there.

It had been sort of hot in the first couple of days; by the eighth day, sneaking outside to hold hands while Zayn smokes has started to feel like wanking material, and Harry wants to scream bloody murder.

He wants to kiss, he wants to cuddle and fuck and talk and laugh and sleep next to Zayn. And _touch,_ touch, touch until his fingertips start bleeding _,_ fucking hell.

He’d resorted to begging Niall to stand guard outside the bathroom after their last show, so he can get just five minutes alone with Zayn, but both Niall and Zayn had been strangely unreceptive.

“Babe,” Zayn had said with a smirk he probably thought he’d hidden quickly enough, “leave Niall alone, c’mon.”

“No way,” Niall had told him. Well, he’d actually sputtered out something along the lines of, “I will in my fuck, you randy bastard,” but. Details.

So Harry decides to take matters into his own hands. Or, no, to stop holding them in his own hands all the time and twice in the mornings, and enlist Zayn’s help.

He trips over a pile of clothes, stumbles and crashes onto Zayn’s bed, landing on top of him.

Harry can’t see him in the darkness, but he knows it’s definitely Zayn under him, because he makes a decidedly disgruntled noise.

“Shit, sorry!” Harry whispers, sliding off him.

 Zayn stirs and grunts into the pillow. “Harry?”

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“I wasn’t expecting _anyone_ ,” Zayn tells him, a bit ungraciously, Harry would say, if he were nitpicky. “Thought Niall roped you into having a horror marathon.”

“Hours and hours of it; he wouldn’t let me leave. I think he was just being mean. Had to get him shitfaced and distract him with some really weird porn, before I could escape.”

Zayn snorts.

“Then I spent twenty minutes charming the pants off the receptionist, so she’d give me the spare key card to your room,” Harry recounts morosely. “My dimples hurt.”

“Because you’re using them for evil again.” Zayn rolls over on his back.

“Well, you wouldn’t open the door, and you were not answering your phone,” Harry explains as he tucks himself into Zayn’s side. Now that his eyes have adjusted to the darkness and he can see where he’s going, he manages to do it without injuring anyone.

“’Course I wasn’t, it’s…” Zayn checks the alarm clock, “it’s three in the bloody morning,” he grumbles, even as he wraps his arms around Harry and closes his eyes again.

“Hey, Zayn?”

“Shh.”

“But–”

“Harry, shut up or I’ll kick you out.

“Fine.”

“Are you pouting?”

Harry stops pouting. “No.”

He moves one hand to the waistband of his jeans and starts undoing his belt.

Zayn heaves a sigh. “What now?”

“Well, you’re clearly not going to fuck me, and I won’t be able to sleep with _this_ , so I thought I’d take care of it myself. You can go back to sleep, I’ll try to be quiet.”

Zayn’s eyes snap open.

Harry graces him with his dirtiest grin, which is admittedly rather dirty, and sits up to take his shirt off.

Zayn’s breath hitches; he looks a bit dazed, and he still hasn’t said anything. Harry frowns, balling up the shirt.

“I mean, d’you want to? It’s fine if you don’t right now, I’ll get out of your hair,” he says in a rush, biting his lip. “I just thought that, well, you were staring at me today like you wanted to fuck me until I can’t walk–”

They’re suddenly a blur of movement, and Harry ends up on his back with a startled _oomph._ Zayn settles between his thighs, face in his neck, and Harry wraps himself around him like ivy, ankles hooked around Zayn’s calves and hands locked together at the small of his back.

“You know that someone could barge in at any moment, yeah?” Zayn asks, muffled. “They’ve been doing that lately.”

“I blockaded the door,” Harry says. “Oh and, Zayn, can you, like, try to keep the marks below the neckline this time? Lou still calls me a fangbanger because of that last one.”

He can feel the low rumble of Zayn’s laughter against his chest. “Who said anything about marks?”

Harry pauses, thrown by the question. “Please?”

When in doubt, be polite, he reckons.

Zayn lifts his head to look at him, mouth curling slowly. “ _How high_ , you bossy little shit.”

His gentle hands belie the words; they frame Harry’s face, thumb running across his lips and fuck, Harry feels like his heart might just leap out of his chest, leaving a Zayn-shaped hole there.

It’s probably fitting that this is his last coherent thought, but Harry doesn’t really have time to dwell on it, because Zayn’s lips brush his, once, twice and “Harry,” Zayn murmurs, “I _am_ going to fuck you until you can’t walk.”

Harry nearly blacks out at that. He opens his mouth, deepening the kiss until they’re both breathless with it.

His hands slide under Zayn’s T-shirt, pushing it up his back. They break apart long enough for Zayn to yank it over his head and get rid of his boxers. Harry gazes at him, distracted, until Zayn tugs at his jeans, pulling them down, and Harry lifts his hips to help. When Zayn kisses him again, there’s nothing between them but skin; heat and sweat and skin, so much smooth, warm skin.

Harry gets a little lost in the way Zayn feels against him, the delicate ropes of muscle in his back, twitching under Harry’s searching fingers, the sound Zayn makes when Harry sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, a velvety little hum that Harry wants to inhale, rub into his skin, hold under his tongue until it melts.

Zayn’s mouth seems to be everywhere at once, lips and teeth and soft, soothing kisses over the bruises he etches across Harry’s shaking body, below the swallow tattoos, around one nipple, a splash of magenta blooming right next to his belly button, an almost perfect circle on the inside of his thigh, and “Please,” Harry says, hoarse, broken. “ _Zayn_.”

Zayn’s weight lifts off him, and no, this most definitely is not what Harry meant.

He’s frantic now, skin stretched too tightly over his bones and a madly spinning, scorching ball of need in his belly, and this is so, so _not_ what he meant. He wraps his fingers around himself, desperate for some relief.

“Hands off,” Zayn says.

His fingertips graze Harry’s cock as he slaps his hand away, none too gently, and Harry squirms, breathing a litany of ‘again, please, again’.

Zayn ignores him, tossing a condom on Harry’s stomach, then he rips open one of the sachets of lube he’s holding.

Harry turns into a flame, choking on words and swallowing them whole as the first finger slides in.

Zayn has three fingers inside him when he curls them slightly, and oh, _oh_.

“Oh God…fucking God.” Harry’s back arches on a groan, and he grabs the headboard for leverage as he pushes back against Zayn’s hand.

Zayn smiles at him, bends down to kiss his collarbones just as he stops moving his hand, and Harry almost sobs.

“So beautiful,” Zayn whispers against his skin. “Stop fucking yourself on my fingers, babe, you’re not coming yet.”

He removes his fingers, the cruel prick, and Harry fucking _whines_ , clenching around nothing. He wants to scream and curse and beg, but as Zayn finally, finally pushes in, he just lets his head drop back against the pillow and keeps himself open and still for Zayn. He breathes deeply, motes swimming before his eyes and drops of sweat rolling off his forehead as he tries to relax enough to take everything Zayn has to give. He feels full to the point of bursting, his body, his heart. When Zayn bottoms out, it’s sharp and sweet; there are tears running down Harry’s temples and into his hair, no shame, no coyness.

He shifts a bit, and Zayn’s breath bursts out of him, hips jerking. Harry’s eyes roll back in his head, legs tightening around Zayn.

Zayn waits, brushing the curls away from Harry’s face, kissing his wet eyes. Zayn’s dark hair is tousled, face distorted with pleasure, eyes heavy-lidded and blazing, and Harry is suddenly floored by the realization that this is his right now, for a precious fraction of a second, Zayn is his.

“M’good,” he pants, and Zayn starts moving again, slow, deep thrusts and quick, shallow ones as they find a rhythm together.

Zayn pushes Harry’s knees back against his chest, angling his hips up, leaving Harry spread open and almost bent in half, with no other choice than to take it.

“Too much?” Zayn asks, voice wrecked, when Harry’s moans dissolve into whimpers.

Harry bites his lip and arches his back, fucking himself even deeper on Zayn’s cock.

Zayn breathes an awed ‘shit, babe’, linking their fingers together above Harry’s head. His thrusts grow erratic, no pattern or flow. Harry’s swearing up a storm now, all his senses overwhelmed; it’s so good, so fucking good that it almost is too much. A familiar weight settles low in his stomach, like a fist grabbing his insides and twisting.

Zayn leans down to kiss him, his breath hot and ragged against Harry’s skin.

“Close, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, breathless, faint, as Zayn lets go of one of his hands to wrap his fingers around Harry and tug, fucking into him again.

A string of helpless, wet gasps explodes out of Harry, turning into _ZaynZaynZayn_ and then a strangled, “Gonna come, fuck, you’re gonna make me come.”

Zayn bends down to flick his tongue over Harry’s nipple, then sinks his teeth into it, right over the bite mark he’d left there earlier.

Harry nearly flies off the mattress as he comes, his whole body curving backwards, muscles contracting and releasing, and it seems to push Zayn over the edge too; his hips stutter and he slams into Harry one last time, head thrown back and Harry’s name on his lips.

Harry can’t tell if he’s soaring higher and higher or spiraling towards the ground, body taut and trembling like a drawn bow, and there’s no air, oh God, all the air in the room is gone.

“Harry,” Zayn murmurs in his ear, “breathe.”

Zayn holds himself above him, presses his lips to Harry’s cheek, the corner of his mouth, his chin, silent and solid as he guides him back down.

“Fuck,” Harry wheezes out a laugh. “ _Fuck_ , Zayn.”

His arms are too heavy, limp, like balloons full of water as he wraps them around Zayn’s neck and pulls him in for a sloppy, wet kiss. He sucks on Zayn’s tongue in fits and starts, in sync with his own staccato breathing.

“You okay?” Zayn asks quietly, easing out of him.

“Ow. I’m great _._ No, stay here. I’m _marvelous,_ Zayn.”

Zayn laughs, and Harry nips at his jaw.

“Don’t laugh at me, you fucked me stupid.”

“You’re a mess.”

“No, I feel pretty.”

Zayn smiles down at him, and it takes Harry’s breath away.

“You can’t look at me like that,” he protests. “We _are_ a train wreck, Zayn.”

Zayn remains silent for a moment, brushing his thumb over Harry’s cheekbone.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “What’s so bad about train wrecks anyway?”

Harry smiles too.

The silence is easy, comfortable like the way their bodies fit together, both familiar and completely new. The minutes and hours bleed into one unending moment, a quiet, tacit one, because everything’s different now, but nothing’s really changed; this isn’t where they tell each other it’ll all be okay in the end.

There are no promises to be made, no dreams to weave and hopes to share, just Zayn’s hand on Harry’s chest, right over his heart, and Harry’s fingertips fluttering over Zayn’s lips, memorizing the shape of the unspoken truths behind them.

Their only vow thrums through their veins like a shared bloodstream, and maybe it won’t be enough in the harsh morning light, but dawn is still hours away.

“I’ll be there too,” Zayn says.

Harry opens his eyes and stays.

 

 

 


End file.
